ABSTRACT
On the second anniversary of Independence on 15 August 1949, Shankarrao Deo, the then General Secretary of the Indian National Congress, in an article in the Calcutta daily Amrita Bazar Patrika expressed his hope that: ‘Future historians while writing about this period of “transition” and the part played by the Congress during these crucial times in the history of the nation will, I am confident, give the Congress its due.’1 Historians writing on this period have agreed with him, as indeed it is difficult to ignore the crucial role played by the Congress during this important time. Bipan Chandra and his colleagues have acknowledged that: ‘The Indian National Congress was then the most important political organization in India at independence … . It enjoyed immense prestige and legitimacy as the leader and heir of the national movement …’2 But this was a broad-based liberation movement, incorporating people with different political ideologies and expectations, united by the common objective of driving out the British. So when that common foe was removed and India achieved independence, the Congress faced the challenge of reinventing itself as a political party. From the 1930s onward, it has been pointed out by many historians, two distinct trends were emerging within the Congress, envisioning freedom in two different ways. One was the Gandhian trend which expected freedom to take the shape of an ethical and moral transformation of the polity through social service, self-help and a village-based economy. And the other was the Nehruvian concept of modernity that reposed its faith in the state as an agent of change through democratic secularism, scientific innovation and active social engineering for the welfare of the people. It is often believed that there was eventually a synthesis of the two resulting in a consensus – often retrospectively identified as the ‘Nehruvian consensus’ – which spoke of a new hybrid Indian modernity that was rooted in Indian tradition.3
